Defense: Passenger to blame for alleged DWI wreck

By Samuel Howard, San Antonio Express-News

Published 6:29 pm, Tuesday, June 24, 2014

SAN ANTONIO — Driver Zachary Song Brewer was more than twice the legal limit for drunkenness when he caused a fiery multi-car crash that severely injured his passenger, prosecutors said Tuesday as his intoxication assault trial began.

But it was passenger Jaime Solis Hernandez's own fault for causing a “belligerent” distraction, Brewer's own attorney countered as he described a vastly different scenario.

Brewer, 24, could face up to 10 years in prison if jurors in the 187th state District Court find that alcohol was a factor in the Nov. 14, 2013, head-on collision on TPC Parkway.

“... It's just obvious he's intoxicated,” Assistant District Attorney Eric Fuchs said during opening statements, explaining that a blood sample was taken about an hour after the wreck.

Brewer didn't turn on his headlights and drove hundreds of feet on the wrong side of a median, hitting two oncoming cars, Fuchs said.

“You're going to hear that (Hernandez is) lucky to be alive,” Fuchs told the jurors. “And (testimony will indicate) he spent six full weeks in the hospital, that he had more than 10 surgeries and that his life is not the same today because he got in the car with this defendant who had too much to drink.”

Defense attorney Adrian Perez countered that his client drank four or five beers over the course of about four hours at a North Side bar. Hernandez, 36, was “completely lit up” when he asked the defendant to drive him home, Perez said.

Brewer suffers from anxiety problems and has only been driving for a few years, which made him unprepared to safely maneuver the car while his friend acted belligerent, his attorney explained during his opening statement.

“Zach suffers from anxiety, extreme nervousness,” Perez said. “He has since he was little.”

When Hernandez threw his cellphone, Brewer bent down to pick it up and mistakenly turned into oncoming traffic, Perez said.

Perez also suggested the blood alcohol test administered by nurses at University Hospital was “not reliable.”

“Very simply, you're not going to hear he was intoxicated,” Perez said.

As he took the witness stand to testify against his friend, Hernandez said he didn't remember drinking heavily that night.

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“After not even finishing my second beer, I don't recall anything ... after that,” he testified. “The only thing I recall is waking up four weeks later in a hospital bed.”